Rooster Charlie's Beginings
by Re Named
Summary: A story about Charlie Brewser before he met Mary 'Jacky' Faber, everyone's favourite heroine
1. Prologue

It was cold; the snow had just started to melt, which in itself was out of the ordinary because it didn't usually snow like this in Cheapside, London. A young boy by the name of Cole was picking his way through the centuries of garbage piled high beside the Thames by the generations of London dwellers before him. Being Cheapside born and raised, for all 10 years of his life, he knew where to look for the best stuff. Something for him to eat or sell so he could keep his body and soul together a little longer. He hadn't seen another person at any point in the evening, so what he wasn't expecting to find while sorting through the trash was a baby.

He looked at the boy, and the boy looked back at him. Cole figured he had three choices. One he could pitch the baby in the river, thereby eliminating the problem. He could leave the baby for someone else to hopefully find, thereby passing the problem onto someone else. Or he could keep the kid, try and deal with it as well as dealing with all the other bloody crap he had going on in his life. He put the baby down, intending to leave it, like he didn't have enough to deal with in the life of an urchin? As he walked away he heard a faint cry, the baby, not wanting to be put down no that he had been found. When Cole walked away, there was no baby on the ground.


	2. Chapter 1

"Please sir, please can I have one? I won't be no trouble to you sir, promise I won't. Please, just that small one over there, and I know you'll go straight to heaven for it, you will!" the grubby little girl held her hand out. She was watching the owner of the pie cart, willing him to look at her and not at the small boy with bright red hair who was creeping round behind him snatching pie after pie from the shelves above the cart. He was grabbing a fourth full meat pie, stacking it atop of the others in his filthy little sack when the man, cursing, started to turn around.

"Pleeeeeeeeeeease" she started to wail, giving the signal that it was time to go. At her loud outburst the man's attention came back to her as he lashed out at her with a swift club to the head. She was expecting it and dove nimbly out of the way as the boy dove nimbly under the cart, out of sight. The girl ran away, ducking through the crowd and into a small dead ended ally. Shortly after, a bright red head peeked around the corner, followed by a small figure carrying a large sack. Just then a cry of rage came from the busy street

"Time to go I recon, right Lucy?" the boy laughed

"Right on Charlie" she replied, scurrying up onto a pile of rubbish.

"Lets get a move on the before he sticks his fat head in here to find were we've gone." He said as he followed her up. By then she had gotten a hold on the gutter and swung herself up onto the roof of the building and was reaching down to grab the sack. Charlie passed it up to her and climbed up after it, taking the bag back. Together they raced across the rooftops, jumping from edge to edge, avoiding gutters and other obstacles as they made their way towards the industrial part of town.


	3. Chapter 2

Where are they? They're the only ones still missing and I'm starving I am." A pudgy little boy who looked about the age of twelve stammered.

"They'll be coming' round right quick I wager." A tall, wiry boy with jet black hair replied. He was standing in a warehouse doorway looking outside at the Thames running by. Behind them waited eleven small and hungry children as well as a tiny pile of food. There clearly wasn't enough to feed them all, but then there never really was. By an unspoken rule they waited for the last members of the gang to return to the warehouse that served as their kip.

"H'llo there Reef, you fat ol' toad! H'llo Cole" Charlie said as he hoped down into the doorway from the roof up above. The big boy jumped at his sudden appearance, it had seemed as if he had just shown up out of thin air, one minute nothing, then there he was. Cole looked at the boy with a small amount of pride. He was the one who had raised the child for the seven years of his life. He was the brother Cole had a chance to see grow up. He wouldn't let anyone take that away from him. Not again.

"Stoof if Charlie and get yourself in here... where's Lucy?" The large boy replied, trying to keep up a sense of dignity.

"Here Reef, don't you worry" Lucy replied to her big brother. There wasn't a lot of family resemblance between the two of them apparently they took after their fathers. Unfortunately, their mother hadn't remember who their fathers were, which, on account of her profession wasn't an odd thing.

"What you got there Charlie?" Cole asked the smaller boy looking at the bulges sticking out of the sack he was carrying.

"Some pies, Cole look how we did! Four can you believe it?" at his reply all of the other children who were playing around behind them on some of the empty crates came rushing over with exclamations of surprise to stare at the warm pies.

"a'right get back all o' yiz. I'm gonna split em so don't you ruin em wi your drool just yet." Cole said to all of the children crowding round behind them.


	4. Chapter 3

Later that night, Charlie and Lucy lay looking at the stars through a hole in the warehouse roof.

"What you gonna do when you grow up Chucky?" she asked

"I'm gonna be just like Cole is. I'm gonna find a gang o kids and I'm gonna help um. Then I'm gonna grow up and I'm gonna get big and strong and I'll be real smart. So when I'm all grown up I will tell people that they need to keep their kids cause its not fair that we have to live out here starvin' on the streets. Plus I know that some people probably want t' keep their kids but they die so the kids don't have nowhere to go. Then those kids can all find some gangs that are good. Like me. My mom wanted to keep me, I know she did. She pro'lly just died is all. I don't blame her none for it."

"I don't blame my mom none for what she did neither." Lucy replied "she always took good care o me an' Reef fore she got sick.

Listening to the children talk in the dark Cole let his mind wander. He let images come to mind that he repressed at all other times. He saw his mother laying still in her bed, his father looking at her and walking away out of the house and into the night. Cole trying desperately to wake his mother up, he knew she was fine she was just sleeping is all, just sleeping. He saw his little brother in the cradle beside his mother's bed waving his arms, and then he started to cry, his tears splashing onto his baby brother's face. Cole picked his brother up and took him out into the night, following his father. But when he got outside his father had disappeared into the thick blackness. That was the last time he saw his father, but it wasn't the last time he had reason to cry. The next night as he lay freezing in a gutter, curled around the still, dead form of his brother his tears flowed down his face, once more to land on his brother's. That was the last time he cried.

Lying on a rough blanket Cole thought of Charlie. He wouldn't let the same thing happen to him, no matter what. He was older now, older, smarter and more experienced. He would take care of Charlie in a way he was never able to care for his brother. They were a family now, Charlie and Cole Brewster. As Cole slowly let the soft velvet of darkness take him to the land of dreams he promised himself that he wouldn't let anything happen to his brother. He would keep Charlie safe.


End file.
